


Ghostbait

by deusreks



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Fluff and Angst, Ghost Hunters, M/M, Mild Language, Mild Sexual Content, Mild Spookiness, Mystery, POV Multiple, Paranormal Investigators
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-10-20
Updated: 2017-10-17
Packaged: 2019-01-18 14:28:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,448
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12389958
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deusreks/pseuds/deusreks
Summary: Two childhood friends trying to be friends again. Or more. One psychic. Three paranormal investigators with a video channel. Some real ghosts. Some not so real ghosts.





	Ghostbait

Oikawa Tooru’s family house looks the same as when he left it two years ago to live in the big city with his mother. Yet he feels like a thief when he enters, the broad daylight outside the witness to his crime. His father, who’s been living alone since everything fell apart, is at work and Tooru knows this when he kicks his shoes off and enters the empty hallway. 

He’s not alone. 

Shadows of what used to be walk with him; his brother carrying him on his shoulders to their secluded kitchen where their mother awaits with lunch; his father coming home tired and weary but never without a smile when he finds them asleep on the couch long after the anime they were watching is over; his messy handwriting on the walls where he marked how much he’s grown.

The days of post-it notes on the kitchen table were over and as he walks past it, Tooru trails his finger over its surface but doesn’t find dust. Perhaps his father has cleaned the place in preparation for Tooru spending his summer here, or perhaps he’s always kept it clean because he’s doing okay despite their absences weighing on his back.

As he climbs the stairs up to his room, he keeps thinking how he should’ve returned sooner but didn’t out of fear of not wanting go to back to the city and thus breaking his mother’s heart. 

His room is completely untouched, recently cleaned, the bed sheets new. He leaves his suitcase by his bed and opens the window. He inhales like it’s the first time he’s done so since his arrival, and sets his eyes on the balcony of his neighbour’s house. The curtains are drawn. All Tooru needs to do is climb out the window, jump and then knock and then—

He retreats from the window and leaves his room.

The room across the hallway is his brother’s.

It’s a little different here. Dust coats every surface like nobody’s entered in a long time. The bed is unmade. The desk is messy. Bookshelves are gaping despite being full. Sunlight doesn’t touch this side of the house much. It’s easy to see now that Tooru’s brother was the sun. And now he’s gone and so is everything that has made this room warm.

Tooru lies on the bed, eyes scanning the row of books arranged neatly on the bed post as though they were Shin’s light reading before sleep. Encyclopedia, Physics textbook, The Best of H.P. Lovecraft, Spirit Diary—

Shin’s handwriting lays neat on the backbone of a worn, black notebook. Tooru pulls it out and it opens on its own as if haunted by all the times Shin’s obsessively read through it. Because that’s what it looked like. Obsession. Dates and places in their tiny city. Urban legends. Hauntings. Some solved and some unsolved. Tiny notes Shin took from actually visiting the spots he researched about.

Tooru flips through the pages and finds bits and pieces of his brother on each and every one of them. He knew his brother held an interest for the supernatural but not that he was this meticulous about it. Without a second to think upon his actions, Tooru takes the notebook and flings himself off the bed and towards the window in his room. He climbs onto the windowsill like he has done many times when he had an easier time fitting through the window frame. He reaches the balcony across his room with ease and hesitates for a brief moment before knocking on the curtained window once. Twice. Thrice.

He hears a tumble of feet approach the window in a whirlwind of curses. The curtains fall open.

“ _What the_ —“ Sleepy face of Iwaizumi Hajime turns to absolute horror when his eyes set on Tooru’s nervous grin. “No.” And he pulls the curtains up again, leaving Tooru with a clear view of unpleasant nerves dancing beneath his brown curls and across the bags under his eyes.

He, stubborn and stirred by seeing Iwaizumi’s face again, knocks on the window in the tune of 90s anime theme songs Iwaizumi and he have watched together in happier, innocent times.

The curtains open again, this time revealing Iwaizumi’s irritated – but not quite angry to Tooru’s relief – expression.

“Oikawa,” Iwaizumi says, carefully accentuating every word so that Tooru gets the message across in its entirety. “I will push you down.”

Tooru presses his nose to the glass. “Do it.”

Iwaizumi glares at him for what feels like the longest session of detention Tooru has never had to do and just as he begins to think it’s hopeless, and rightfully so, Iwaizumi opens the sliding glass door. Tooru stumbles inside and finds that Iwaizumi’s room hasn’t changed at all. It’s neat, lemon-scented  and cosy, its walls adorned by movie posters and autographed baseball cards.

“It’s fascinating you have the face to show yourself here after two years,” Iwaizumi says, not hiding how he feels in the slightest.

“I had to go with my mother.”

“But you didn’t have to cut all contact with me.”

“I didn’t want to go. I was—“ Tooru stops, not wanting to say the word. He glances at Iwaizumi’s furrowed brow and upturned lips and decides to continue. “Hurting.”

“So was I.”

Tooru clutches the notebook in his hands and sits down on the floor, not really wanting to mess up Iwaizumi’s bed. Or be anywhere near his bed.

“I’m back for the summer.”

Iwaizumi crosses his arms. His gaze is heavy as it falls down on Tooru. “Good for you.”

“And I got us a new adventure.” Tooru lifts the notebook with both his arms. For a moment he thinks Iwaizumi is going to reject him but instead he squints at it to try and read the tiny font on the cover page but gives up and takes the notebook instead.

He flips it open, giving each page a cursory glance. “This doesn’t look like it will be a healthy activity for you.”

“Is anything?” Tooru asks as if he’s proud of the fact. Iwaizumi doesn’t miss the tone and the look he gives him is completely warning. “I will do it with or without you. It’s just that when I found it, I thought I wanted you to join me. Like in the good old times.”

Iwaizumi sighs and tosses the notebook on Tooru’s folded legs. It lands gently.

“Fine,” Iwaizumi says and runs his hand through his hair like he tends to when he’s been defeated or at a loss for arguments. “But only because I don’t want you on my conscience. I’m already an accomplice.”

“That’s the spirit!” Tooru jumps up, feeling gleeful and lighter at the second chance he was given, even if Iwaizumi doesn’t want to call it that. “I will pick you up tonight. Be ready.” He goes for Iwaizumi’s balcony, disregarding the existence of the front door. As he’s crossing the narrow gap to the window of his room, he hears Iwaizumi mutter—

“ _Whatever_.”

◇ ✕ ✕ ✕ ✕ ✕ ◇ 

Tooru prepares miso soup and brown rice for dinner just in time for his father’s return from work. He’s made it the same way his mother makes it and he knows his father can tell by the way he stops after the first bite and stares at the dishes with distant longing and perhaps a tinge of regret. Tooru learned very young that once things start crumbling because of one thing, they fall apart because of everything else.

“Did you visit Hajime?”

“Yes,” Tooru says. “He was happy to see me.”

“I bet. You two are inseparable.”

Tooru clutches the chopsticks  in his hand, hating the taste of lies as they left his mouth.

“He wasn’t,” Tooru adds, quickly as if his father wouldn’t hear them like that. “He was mad. For leaving. For not saying a word in two years.”

“Did you apologize?”

“No. Should I? I haven’t even apologized to you for choosing mom and never coming back until now.”

“You don’t have to apologize to me. It was not your fault. Besides, I’m a tough old man.” His father smiles and even though there’s rice stuck on his teeth, he looks just as tough as he’s promised despite the crinkles under his eyes and weariness on his brow.

Tooru doesn’t hesitate to return the smile. It’s hard to tell which one of them is better at this.

◇ ✕ ✕ ✕ ✕ ✕ ◇ 

Three minutes before midnight, Tooru knocks on Iwaizumi’s window. His pulse is a loud snake crawling in his veins; it boils and hisses as Iwaizumi opens his window in what feels like a heartbeat. Iwaizumi, dressed to go in a cozy, black tracksuit, greets him with a deadpan expression, his eyes droopy as though he’s just woken from a nap.

“Wait for me by the gate,” Iwaizumi says and a sharp edge to his voice confirms Tooru’s suspicions. Makes Tooru want to tease him so he talks some more.

Instead, he recoils from the window and makes a peace sign to press to his forehead. “Yes, sir.”

With Shin’s notebook tucked under his armpit and a jacket tied around his waist, Tooru sneaks out of his house into a warm night combed only by the cold hand of a midnight breeze. It’s been a while since he’s snuck out for an after-midnight deed. Two years, to be more precise. He never saw much point in seeking out adventures if Iwaizumi wasn’t there to kick his shin when he says something stupid or there to laugh with him over a joke that wasn’t even funny. It was never about the adventure anyway, it was about the company.

Iwaizumi doesn’t make him wait long. He emerges from his house tip-toeing, locking the doors so quietly that Tooru struggles to even hear a  _click_  or the jingle of the keys.

They fall into step together, Iwaizumi staying just a little behind so he can follow where Tooru leads them. The street is wide enough to prevent a sense of claustrophobia and Tooru feels as comfortable as though he’s going out for a casual walk and not a glorified ghost hunt.

“I suppose you have a plan…?” Iwaizumi questions. Tooru still shivers at his voice.

“Nah,” Tooru hums. “I figured we’ll think of something when we get there.”

“The key to hunting ghosts is to be yourself and have fun?”

“Of course. Isn’t everything?”

Iwaizumi allows a crooked laugh to escape his lips, like he didn’t want it to but couldn’t stop himself either. “You haven’t changed at all.”

Tooru spares him a glance with the tiniest of taunting grins he dared offer. He says, “Aren’t you glad?”

“Kinda. It means I still know the most effective ways of dealing with you.”

“Like going along with me so I don’t howl at your window all night?”

“Something along those lines.”

The silence that follows their little banter is pleasant.

The house they arrive to is just two streets down from their homes. If life was a horror movie, it would’ve been the textbook setting for hauntings and séances, a church bell that rings with screams, marked by dried blood on the wooden floorboards.

“You know, this house is going to be demolished soon and replaced by an apartment building,” Iwaizumi informs once he gets a better look at the place. He crosses his arms as though the mere sight of broken window glass and lurking darkness behind gives him the creeps.

“I’m not surprised. Don’t think anyone’s lived here even when we were kids.”

“Easy to see why this is a perfect location for an urban legend.”

Tooru sneers. “Urban legend,” he pokes Iwaizumi in the ribs and Iwaizumi twists like a snake forcefully risen from sleep. “Are you scared, Iwaizumi Hajime?”

“No. I don’t believe in this ghost crap.”

Tooru bows and points towards the door like a servant would to a member of the royalty. “Shall we enter then?”

Iwaizumi bows as theatrical as to match Tooru, if not more dramatic by a margin. “By all means.”

The inside is colder than the outside. Perhaps because the wind whistles through the belly of the house and never quite leaves. Perhaps something keeps it here. Perhaps Tooru is trying so hard to ignore the chill creeping up his neck and electrifying the short hairs there that he cannot rationalize it as poor isolation.

Tooru lights the flashlight on his phone and they both remain silent as they walk into the hallway that opens the rest of the house in a labyrinthine fashion. A single wardrobe stands open, leaning onto the only wall that doesn’t have a door leading somewhere else in the house. His brother’s notebook has recorded claims of an entity clad in black and red robes standing by the wardrobe and disappearing into it once it became aware of being watched. He touches the wooden doors of the wardrobe and they move to a close with a creak.

He opens them again. Nothing happens. 

“The only thing this place is haunted by is poor aesthetic design,” Iwaizumi says, peeking over Tooru’s shoulder. Tooru deliberately moves the flashlight to Iwaizumi’s eyes, temporarily blinding him and sending his mouth on a tirade of colorful curses.

“Iwa-chan, if I were a ghost I wouldn’t show myself to your skeptical ass on purpose.” He doesn’t make a comment about how aesthetics of the place really were lacking.

“Works for me.”

Whatever Tooru has wanted to say next, takes a backseat in his mind when a flurry of footsteps and eerie, hushed voices enter the hallway from the previously empty foyer. His heart thunders in his chest as he pulls Iwaizumi inside the wardrobe they had previously mocked as fast as he could on his fumbling feet. The wardrobe is cramped with their bodies pressing into each other uncomfortably and the silky feeling caressing his neck is either Iwaizumi’s breath or cobwebs.

He doesn’t have time to investigate which of the two.

The steps come inside the hallway.

“And?” One voice says. It’s low and distinctly human. Tooru has to put a hand over his mouth to stop himself from breaking into a hysterical laughter. Of course it’s human. What else. 

“Like I said,” another voice answers, soft-spoken and seemingly disinterested at the idea of having to hold this conversation. “There is no supernatural activity in this place.”

A third person emits what appears to be a disappointed whine. “ _Again_? But we interviewed more than ten people with stories about this place.”

“They are stories for a reason.” The fourth voice is flat and husky, accompanied by a scrap of something heavy against the wooden floor.

“Tsukki, you’re sure you don’t sense anything?”

The person – Tsukki – answers with a sigh: “Nothing at all.”

That’s when it happens.

Next to Tooru comes a hissed warning ‘ _Leave’_. He turns in the darkness, allowing the slightest sliver of light to leak from his phone and illuminate Iwaizumi’s mouth pressed onto the wardrobe wall to make it seem as though it’s coming from elsewhere in the house. Almost like a ghost. 

A wonderful scheme, if Tooru may say so himself.

A shriek. “ _What was that?!_ ”

“Bokuto,” Tsukki speaks again. “I told you, nothing—“

“ _Shhh_.”

They don’t hear anything for what feels like the longest 15 seconds in history of Tooru’s young life. Neither of them move, even their breathing seems to have come to a still, both worried that even the minutest sound would give them away.

The wardrobe door flings open.

Tooru yelps and drops his phone.

“ _BOO_!”

It takes a moment for his eyes to adjust to four lights flashing in his face and he comes face to face with a grinning expression of a young man with the most offensive bed hair Tooru has ever seen.

Bedhead says, “It pains me that you’re never wrong, Tsukishima.”

To his left, a lanky boy with glasses crosses his arms in a display of confident arrogance. “It pains me that you still try to disprove my claims.”

A third person pushes his way between Bedhead and Tsukishima, his wide eyes glowing yellow and curious against the artificial light. “ _Oho_ , what do we have here? Ghosts in a closet?”

The fourth guy, the least vocal one as it appeared, sets down a tripod and pays them no more than another glance before proceeding to fasten a camera onto it. He adds, “They look quite human to me, Bokuto.”

“They’re human.” Bedhead confirms.

“Are we seriously debating this?” Tsukishima pitches in, his frown only deepening.

“Why would two humans hide in a tiny closet in the middle of the night?” Bokuto asks, waving his index finger around like it would make his statement more viable.

“Fair point,” Bedhead agrees, eliciting a sigh from both Tsukishima and the grim-looking camera boy. He turns to Tooru and points an accusing finger at both of them. “Explain yourselves.”

Tooru opens his mouth but for all the words in the world, nothing comes to mind.

“I know who you are, Night Cats,” Iwaizumi says, pushing himself out of the wardrobe. Tooru finally feels as though he’s allowed to breathe again.

Bedhead leans back like being recognized made him relax.

Tooru steps out of the wardrobe too. “Night cats?” He asks.

“Four college kids going to allegedly haunted locations, taking on paranormal cases and making weekly videos on ParaTube,” Iwaizumi gives a lengthy explanation. His tone doesn’t give away how he feels about their content but knowing this much about them means he’s at the very least a casual viewer. Maybe even a secret fan.

Bedhead offers his open hand. “I’m Kuroo Tetsurou.” Tooru takes his hand and shakes it. “This is Tsukishima Kei.” He points at the grumpy one with glasses. Then he points at the owlish, yellow-eyed boy. “Bokuto Koutarou.” And the last one, camera boy. “Akaashi Keiji.”

“I’m Oikawa Tooru,” Tooru introduces himself. “And this is Iwaizumi Hajime.”

“How come you don’t know about us, if you’re local?” Kuroo asks.

“I’m not local,” Tooru replies. He wants to add  _not anymore_ , but Iwaizumi’s presence is like broken glass beneath his feet. He must tread carefully. “We heard that this place is haunted so we came to check it out.”

Kuroo sighs. “Same here. We were hoping for a juicy episode this week but Tsukishima says nothing’s here. And he appears to be right.” He scratches the back of his head like it deeply troubles him this is so.

“We can do the usual,” Akaashi suggests.

“Twice in a row? It feels dirty,” Kuroo says, though he doesn’t appear to be against the idea if the push comes to a shove.

Tooru listens with interest but doesn’t interrupt. He didn’t know such peculiar fellows were running amok in his home city, chasing shadows and whispers, much like his brother must've while he was recording urban legends and hauntings in his notebook.

“They can help,” Akaashi says. This comes as a surprise to the other three as they turn to him with inquisitive eyes. “Iwaizumi there had the right idea.”

That’s how what Tooru hoped would be his first encounter with the supernatural turned into a stage of well-crafted lies. Iwaizumi stomped in the rooms on the second floor like an angry spirit roused from sleep. The wind cracks like a whip against an open window and allows for a perfect setup for Tooru’s shrill scream when it comes from the balcony, as haunted as he’s intended it to be. They knock on windows, open doors as slow as needed to make it believable and whisper from the dark corners of the house all the while Night Cats prance around with their cameras and narrate a story for their next video.

They finish half past 4am.

“So, will you hire us? For the summer?” Tooru asks, the idea swirling in his mind when he was alone in a bathroom with Iwaizumi, both pretending to be giggling ghosts. It didn’t pass him by that, in that moment, they were having fun. He makes sure that the eagerness in his tone tells Kuroo that he has no intention of taking no for an answer. “Free of charge.”

Kuroo exchanges glances with the other three. Neither of the them show a sign of giving any kind of response, yet Kuroo turns to Tooru after half a minute like the verdict has been made and agreed on. “Fine. We could use a helping hand or two.”

Tooru’s stomach churns with excitement. Some colorful company  _and_  working through his brother’s notebook? Killing two birds with one stone. He looks at Iwaizumi, who shrugs, no objection on his part about this arrangement.

Tooru grins.

Three birds, one stone.

**Author's Note:**

> rusty.txt


End file.
